Chosen
by mmiet
Summary: The Crawleys and the world take a very different (AU) course from 1921. Events include an early return to war with terrible results for those at Downton. Mostly Matthew, but you can't really have Matthew without at least a little Mary. The usual disclaimers apply. 7 chapters.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

He came to the door of Crawley House and stopped. As he'd walked up he'd realized this was the first time he'd returned under his own power and somehow, in all the strangeness he made his way through, whether to knock or just enter stopped him. Before he decided, a German sergeant opened the door and looked down at him in a neutral way.

"I am Matthew Crawley."

When that didn't get a response, he added, "I was told to come here."

"Ausweispapiere?"

Matthew took a paper from his pocket he'd been given at the train station. It listed his residence as Crawley House. Without moving a muscle, the sergeant conveyed skepticism.

Matthew took a packet of papers in a grey paperboard sleeve from his pocket, held the sleeve and gestured to the paper the sergeant already held. "It's all I have."

The sergeant frowned slightly and closed the door without latching it. Matthew stood, looking along the walkway and along the street. He couldn't decide if it was as he remembered. The door opened fully again to reveal a Wehrmacht major standing at the side of the sergeant.

"I am Major Jantz. You have just arrived?"

"Yes."

"There has been some sort of mistake. Please show me your identification card."

Matthew handed him the sleeve. The major pulled out the papers and the sergeant tried to look at the papers as the major looked at all three sheets.

"Yes, well, this is unusual. As I said, there has been some sort of mistake. However, as you are on parole you may not go elsewhere until a new assignment is made. Wait here, Colonel."

The two walked away as the door shut and latched, speaking quietly in German he didn't try to hear. He turned and looked at the yard, decided not to sit on the step despite his tiredness, and looked about again. The weak late February light usually didn't help old villages like this, but even accounting for that, the place felt vaguely mean. Still, the buildings, roads, and gates were more or less as he pictured. The thought required him to ruffle his memory though, and he pulled himself back into the suspended present that more or less worked, listening to his breath.

Jantz reappeared and told him in English that he would be allowed to stay in a room on a nearby property. The sergeant would show him there and Matthew should go to the police station in the morning to find out whether he would stay there permanently. The major met Matthew's gaze and told him he would do best to read the rules as he gestured with the papers in the grey sleeve. Matthew took the papers from him and met the major's halting motion of not quite coming to attention with a small nod of his head.

The sergeant took him into a back garden of a house a couple of lots away and facing in a different direction. Just inside a broken back gate, an empty rundown sort of garage stood hard against the stone wall, its main door open to show its disuse. The sergeant walked up a flight of wooden steps with only a partial railing and pushed open a thin door. It was a small room above the garage with a counter under a window, a few larger windows set together, and some bits of furniture. The sergeant told him in German to stay only here until the morning and pointed to what looked like an outhouse down the back walkway and perhaps a pump nearer the garage. He walked away, leaving the door open. Matthew shut the door, kicked a couple of crushed boxes and some cloth together on the floor near the bigger windows and fell asleep moments after he lay down.

When he returned the next morning he was relieved to have the room as a destination. The trip to the police station had been confusing. Apparently he was actually on parole, with many precise restrictions. He really was assigned to live in Crawley House because another part of some bureaucracy involved had counted him dead and automatically put him back at an old address when he reappeared. A single man on parole, however could not live in a house and besides, Crawley House was used by officers. The parole part of the machinery took over after the other part got him out of his old home. They had kept giving him papers until he finally told them his eyes had gone bad and he couldn't read anything. That had thrown things a bit, but after a moment they just continued, and gave him more papers. Someone did tell him he had to return every Friday before eight to register in order to remain on parole.

As he walked up to the garage carrying the small box of supplies they'd given him at the station, he noticed what looked like a chair knocked over towards the back. He saw a sink against the far wall and walked to it. After looking at it for a moment, he turned on the tap and the pipes lurched into a rattle that produced a clot of red sludge and then brown liquid that kept coming and slowly started to lighten. He waited because while the outhouse the sergeant had pointed out the night before had indeed been an outhouse, the pump had not been a pump and he hadn't had anything to drink since the train the morning before. He hadn't had anything to eat since before that, but as he tasted a bit of dank water cupped in his hand, he knew he'd take whatever he could for now.

He remembered the somehow active blank at the jail when he'd said he couldn't read the papers they were giving him. That was usual he realized, another moment of him not being the sort of person due that type of regard. The more interesting moment had been when he'd asked about his family. Sound dipped a bit. One young English constable who seemed to have something the matter with one of his eyes looked at him sideways and said he was sorry, that wasn't their role.

He wondered what day it was. They had told him he needed to report to a work crew Mondays through Thursdays to get food rations. The box had looked like it had a Red Cross packet in it but it didn't look like food. He would need to figure out the days.

When the water stank less, he drank directly from the tap and then picked up the chair as he turned back upstairs. When he got back in the room, he put the box on the counter. He heard people outside as he looked around the room wondering about the chair. Before he realized it, Robert Crawley stood at the top of the stairs looking in. They exchanged first names as if they were seeing each other at a party and needed a quick confirmation of knowing each other.

"I don't think you should be here, actually," Matthew said. "I'm not allowed to have visitors."

"Yes, I have leave to speak with you."

"Ah, of course." Matthew tried to look out a window but couldn't focus. His eyes came back to Robert's face, remarkably unchanged in the three years since they'd seen each other. "So is it your role to tell you about my family?"

"Sorry?"

"It's been strange being here, it's only been a day but, well, it's been strange."

"Of course." Robert frowned and looked away. "I can't imagine what this must be like. The thing is, we thought you were dead."

"Yes."

"We…"

Matthew took a breath and put his hand on the back of the chair. "How is everyone?"

"Do you know anything?"

Matthew felt light for a moment. "Apparently not. Would you like to sit down?"

"No, thank you."

Robert looked away again and then squared up to face Matthew. Matthew felt comforted by the familiar display of effort. Robert sighed and began.

"In the months after the surrender, many of the old estates were grabbed, supposedly to the crown, if any excuse regarding their fitness could be found. Although our financial situation was bit precarious we were more or less sustainable, but at risk with you, well. The boys were underage and some were moving to revert the inheritance laws to restore old rules of succession. A faction in the Lords moved to stabilize things, mostly just to stop the movement and mark their own positions. Everyone assumed that many of the retained titles would be given to sympathizers, possibly along with the estates themselves. We and a number of the other old families were able to arrange private bills in Parliament to clarify succession."

"And isolate from risks."

"I am sorry to say it, but yes. You had been convicted. Had I thought you were alive, I never would have considered it."

Matthew nodded. "And from this I am out."

Robert bit his lower lip and looked down.

"But I don't understand," said Matthew, "why I am kept here, and why you are so embarrassed. The estate and the money are Mary's of course, and have never been the point for me whether or not she is excluded from the title. I thought you understood that."

"You are here because you have no legal connection to the family any longer."

Matthew looked up. "But how? Has something happened to Mary?"

"She is as well as can be, but, well, she sends you this letter."

Matthew looked down at the impossibly clean envelope Robert held towards him. It was from Mary. Somehow she still used the same stationery.

"I can't read anything."

Robert looked up from the envelope with a start.

"My eyes have gone bad and I can't read anything in normal size. A handwritten letter would be hopeless. It must be pretty bad if she's sent you with a letter but you'll have to tell me. Sorry."

For the first time, Robert appeared to have ghosts of tears behind his eyes.

"She has divorced you. Though we truly thought you were dead you were not legally so. The way they've set things up, divorcing you was the only way she could be sure to take the estate on my death and make George the heir."

Matthew looked to the door beyond Robert's shoulder. "And I cannot return as the children's father because as a convicted war criminal I am restricted from non-relatives. I would drag you all down with me. Did you make some sort of deal?"

"We agreed that your residence was not Downton. And Mary took full custody of the children."

"Well. For the better then."

"Matthew."

"Please." He looked at Robert. "Please, tell me how everyone is."

"As I said, Mary is as well as could be expected under these circumstances. Cora died just after the surrender."

"I am sorry," Matthew broke in and looked back at Robert. Robert nodded.

"Your George and Rob are splendid, in good health and doing well in their studies. George is a fine lad, ready to be his own man at the earliest possible moment and Rob is not far behind. Little Violet has had some sickness this past winter but seems to have come through it."

"Isobel."

"I am sorry beyond words, Matthew, but she is dead."

Matthew's hand tightened on the back of the chair.

"She was killed outside Ripon during the little fighting that happened in these parts. A group of the young people gathered, most like her back with family after the schools and universities closed down. We aren't sure what happened, but she went off with a fellow I think she'd been seeing. There was something like half a day of resistance by a home guard unit in Ripon and some of the young were caught in it. She was one of those who died."

"I don't know why, but I just never thought of it. The boys perhaps, but not Isobel. How stupid of me. Mary must have been crushed."

"She was. We all were. For the rest, Edith remains in Canada so far as we know, and we have had no word from Tom or any of the rest. And Carson died in the same wave that took Cora. Another influenza, they thought."

"And I was not here."

"You did your duty."

"Not the right one, apparently. I don't know why I'm not dead, actually. Most at my rank were shot if they hung on. Probably shouldn't even have gotten that far, it was sort of a fluke I was even captured, more that I made…" Matthew realized he was starting to babble. He looked up at Robert who had visible tears in his eyes.

"You must despise me," said the older man.

"Is that in the letter?"

"What…"

Matthew clenched his eyes shut for a moment and shook his head, then looked again at Robert. "No, sorry. No. I do not despise you. Any of you. This has all been madness and I am sure you have done your best. Thank you for coming to tell me."

The two men looked at each other. Matthew was angry, something he had thought he didn't have in him anymore. The matchless sadness he saw in Robert's eyes held him in check.

"Thank you again for coming, Robert, I mean it. I wish you the best, you, Mary and everyone. I send the children my love, but I leave it to you and Mary to decide what to tell them. And now, I think I'd rather you leave me be."

Robert opened his mouth but then just nodded.

Matthew sat down on the chair as Robert closed the door and walked down the steps.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Matthew stepped away from the cart with a piece of bread and a chunk of what looked like decent cheese. His hands were sore from the shoveling, though the mostly younger men on the work crew had set him to the less taxing tasks when they could. He knew from experience he'd have to eat in small bits as it had been several days since he'd had anything and he closed his eyes for a moment before he started to pull the bread apart. A lad with a lot of dark wavy hair sat down next to him. Matthew glanced at him as he put most of the cheese and some of the bread into a jacket pocket.

"It's hard to eat without water, isn't it?"

"It's fine," Matthew replied.

"Ah, yes. Well, it's always bread and something like cheese until Thursday and then usually a bit of something else that day."

"I don't think you should be talking to me," Matthew said quietly, looking away.

"It's all right now," said the other glancing at a man in a uniform Matthew couldn't place. "That one doesn't care if we keep it quiet and brief."

The younger man looked at Matthew.

"My name is Peter Mills, Colonel Crawley."

"Not really using the Colonel I suppose. But it's nice to meet you. What is that uniform?" Matthew asked as he gestured his head at the man monitoring the crew.

"Ah, we call 'em bouncers. They are the new version of home guards, not armed, keeping order. For the boche."

Matthew looked past the man they had been talking about and realized there were others dressed much the same looking at the work crew and otherwise about but only a few in regular German uniform.

"Bouncers?"

"Dunno really."

Matthew ducked his head. "So it's back to boche. It's been a while, but I don't think I know you."

The bouncer called them back into line and Peter Mills stepped away with a shake of his head. Matthew noticed that others had looked away. He needed to be more mindful. He wasn't allowed unnecessary contact with other residents, which had turned out to be pretty much any contact. His encounter with Robert had been on a Saturday and he'd had to wait through the weekend before getting going with the work crew. He had tried to ask a few people if there was any church line or perhaps a veteran's group in the village but no one had answered, quite literally. A man who looked familiar had walked alongside him for a bit and told "Colonel Crawley" that there were no support groups this time. He said it with regret while looking Matthew in the eye. Matthew thought a nod was the best way of showing his thanks, confirmed as the man scuttled off and a woman on a doorstep greeted the fellow with a scowl. Everything about the village looked strained and the garbage bins he looked in when alone along a lane had no food. So he had waited. And now, on Monday afternoon, he felt the heavy bread settle in his stomach and tasted the sheen of mold he apparently hadn't noticed on the cheese. He wondered why he was back.

A few days later Peter Mills sat next to him again during a break.

"The thing is, sir, do you know about your daughter, about Isobel?"

Matthew looked at the youngster again and nodded his head.

"Well," the young man looked down as he spoke quietly, "I was with Isobel. We had been seeing each other the during the summer of '40 and when they shut down the universities we both came back here."

Matthew looked the other man who glanced quickly back and then down again. Matthew realized that the fellow was in his early twenties at most.

"We were just walking out as they used to say, nothing more. I thought a very great deal of her, though, and I think she cared for me. She said she did. We both thought we should do something, try to come together with others and resist or something. At least to know who we all were. We met in Ripon, we didn't intend to fight then but just got caught up in things. A home guard unit set up some barriers and tried to stop a tank for a bit. I don't know why. There was shelling from a lot of tanks and most of us near the home guard got caught up in it. Izzy was brave, told us we could only stay together and take what came. She was right, too, a bunch who tried to run in a scatter were cut down by machine guns. Most of us around her made it through"

"Thank you for telling me. I didn't know much of what happened."

"She died, well, it came quickly, if I can say that."

Matthew looked into the distance. Yes, with all he'd seen and done, knowing his daughter had not suffered long meant something. He looked at the lad and nodded. They both stood up and got back into the work line.

The Thursday ration did include a bag of dried beans and some hard crackers along with the usual bread and cheese. After he signed the register at the station Friday morning, he poked around the yard and garage again, and found a can that wasn't too dirty and held water. He set half the beans to soak in his room and wondered if he'd be allowed to walk around. He looked again at the papers but couldn't make out much, supposed that wouldn't change. After a while, he set out walking and in a few minutes was out of the village in the country. The work crew had been in the country some of the time, but walking alone felt better. People ignored him until a bouncer approached him roughly as he moved along a road that he belatedly realized led to the Abbey. The man seemed to believe his claim that he didn't know where he could go. With a display of importance, the bouncer told him that of course the Abbey grounds were off limits to all, and that as a parolee he was allowed otherwise to wander but couldn't enter any other villages or towns and had to observe his curfew. Matthew decided not to stretch things by asking when his curfew was. He walked near the tracks and picked up some bits of coal and along a woods picking up some fallen branches.

The walk tired him, but it felt fine. Walking along what he thought was a road that ran back towards the village, he saw his shadow in profile against a wall. It seemed stooped and he wondered for the first time in ages how he looked. He found a length of thick string and wrapped the branches once round, which made the bunch a little easier to carry.

As he approached the back lane towards the garage, he looked again at the house across the yard. It looked empty from the back with broken out windows. He dumped the branches and coal in the garage bay and walked through the lane and around the front street. There people did not ignore him as the few he'd seen in the county had. They looked at him sideways and from under dropped heads. He wasn't sure if a few looked angry. The house to the front of the garage's yard was deeper than he'd realized and as he passed he saw it did appear occupied, with the front doorstep swept clear and what looked like old sheets hanging on the lower part of the street level windows. The rooms at the back could be quite far from the front, really. He went to the end and back down through the lane. Back in the garage bay, he looked at the sticks and coal and decided to take them upstairs. The garage wasn't his, he supposed. He wondered about the chair but planned to keep it. He ate the hard crackers and the last of yesterday's cheese and watched the sun get low.

With a bit of light still in the sky he washed up with the cold water in the sink after coming back from the outhouse. He used the bit of soap from the Red Cross packet. Even though it didn't do much for his smell, he took off his jacket and shirts and quickly splashed and washed. He wished he could have a shave. He'd been shaved every so often in the prisons in an efficient manner and his hair clipped short once in a while.

After considering the touch of cold in the evening air, he got his undershirt wet, spread a bit of the hand soap on and wrung the shirt around a bit, carrying it soaking to the top of the steps before hanging it over the railing. The houses around had mostly weak light coming from within and he thought he saw some coming from the front of the house. Down the way, Crawley House gave off a robust warm glow, fully lit and, unlike the other places giving off the sounds of occupation. He lay down as darkness came and felt a calmness that surprised him.

Turning away from the tap in the morning, he started at the sight of a boy, eight or nine, standing at the side of the garage opening.

"We wondered if you knew about the food queue on Saturdays."

"Hello," said Matthew. "I don't know you should be talking with me."

The boy shifted on his feet and looked back to the house but didn't move away.

"No I don't know about the queue."

"It's behind the green warehouse by the station. Starts at noon."

The boy ran towards the front house before Matthew could say anything else.

There was indeed a queue behind the green warehouse at noon. Thirty or so people stood quietly on line, a few watching children who sat or ran about. No one talked. Matthew recognized a few of the men from his work crew, though not Peter Mills. He walked to a bouncer watching the group and asked if he could join the queue. The man asked for his papers and at the sight of the grey sleeve waved him into the line. Matthew stood at the back and looked around. The line started to move and Matthew realized everyone else had sacks or boxes. He saw people walking away with a few items each, most with some onions, a potato or two and what looked like sacks of something and a few other things he couldn't see. The people with children seemed to have jars filled with milk. He heard the woman at the table in front saying some quickly to each person and a few mumbled responses.

He realized with a start that Anna Bates was handing out the food. A German sergeant stood behind her along with a bouncer. The bouncer stepped to her side as Matthew got to the table and asked for his papers. Matthew handed over the packet and watched as the German looked it over. Matthew hadn't figured out the system yet and would have looked at the German trying to see what the sergeant looked at except Anna Bates's wide smile drew his gaze. The German marked something on the outside sleeve and nodded at the bouncer who turned to Anna and gestured at Matthew saying it would be all right for a first time.

"Do you need a sack?" she asked first.

"If it's all right, thank you."

"Yes, we are allowed to give people newly assigned to the village a few extra items. Do you have any matches?"

"No, I haven't," said Matthew.

"I'll put some in, and a bit of cutlery perhaps," she said as the bouncer nodded yes. "The one on your identification packet means you are eligible to join us once a month if you wish. This is the beginning of March so you'd have to wait to April now. We can't guarantee anything, though." The bouncer started to frown so she put the matches and a spoon and table knife into a sack with a few onions and other things he didn't really see, a heavy packet, and an apple. "There you are."

"Thank you," said Matthew with a little bow of his head. Anna Bates smiled and nodded back.

Matthew walked away, annoyed with himself that he felt a sense of humiliation for the first time. It didn't matter if Mrs. Bates had been his wife's maid. His ex-wife's maid. She had looked at him kindly.

He wondered again why he was back.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Matthew made it through a few more weeks. He dug a hole for a fire pit and made a little cooking area near the bottom of the stairs to his room and cooked some of the food. He was getting more ragged, but he warmed up some water for cleaning himself once or twice and at least felt a little better. The food seemed to be enough to help him get some strength and the work crew shifts became somewhat less difficult. He didn't see Peter Mills again.

Walking about on free days he began to get a renewed sense of the village, realizing how strange it was he remembered so little. He learned to stay away from the actual village as much as possible. People seemed uncomfortable at the sight of him. He wasn't sure if it was his current state or just him. He found he had no desire to know. Anna Bates smiled at him and said hello quietly the one time he saw her. He nodded to her and kept walking.

He had started to dream, or remember his dreams at any rate. The years-old enemy returned in force. The dreams were almost always of the first war, sometimes with people from the other wars, the prisons, or from his other life, but set in the first war. The feel of its earth was fresh and horrifying and unique despite all that had come since. A fog held him in most mornings after dreams, sometimes lasting through the day. He forgot to eat often on those days, and the other men on the work crew sometimes had to place the shovel or bucket in his hands. Walking alone cleared him, as did, eventually, just going through what he could see of the day.

At a Friday sign in, he noticed he was the only man looking quite so rough. Some of the others seemed to be always in the same clothes and one or two of the other men had the same unfocused stare as he thought he probably had at times, but only he had a messy beard and sticky hair. The next week, a soldier stepped up to the counter as he inked his thumb to sign in with his print.

"Why do you not go to the shower room?" Matthew saw the soldier was a private, quite young, and seemed to be working on the English words.

"I don't know what you mean."

The German gestured to the grey packet Matthew handed to the police officer as he placed his print.

"You may use the room on the first and third Fridays."

"I'm sorry, I can't read the packet."

The private scowled without anger.

"You must maintain basic clean-ness. The shower room has water and soap and shaving if you need them."

"I didn't know. Where is it?"

The German gestured to an old stables complex behind the station. Matthew walked to the building after they gave him back his packet and it appeared other parolees were walking in from the station. He realized it was towards the end of May so he went in. The bouncer looked at his packet and let him into a whitewashed room. Another looked at him with a degree of distaste and gestured to a bench in front of some pegs. A couple of men were undressed and heading to what sounded like showers and another man walked back from a door further along the wall, wet with a towel. A bouncer told him he got four pulls of the water. Matthew stepped into the room for a shower that was icy, but with a real bar of soap. As he walked away from the shower, the bouncer handed him a safety razor and then after a look a small scissors. It took him a while, but he trimmed off the thickness of his beard and shaved at a sink with soap and cold water and a number of nicks. The bouncer called for the scissors and razor as soon as he was done but let him rinse again in the sink. In the mirror, he looked lopsided somehow. His hair was mostly grey and even old scars seemed bright. He rinsed again and stepped away.

Peter Mills reappeared on a work crew for a week but didn't talk with him. The boy looked at him occasionally, he could tell, but didn't approach. Matthew hadn't worked out which bouncers were looser than others and thought perhaps that was why.

As the days lengthened, he had hours to sit in the room above the garage after the work crew. He wished he could read, but beyond not being able to make out anything, he didn't have any books or other materials. He began sitting on the top step after he'd finished his food and what had become his chores, watching down at the yard and the lane. The boy from the house came into the yard, staying away from the garage. He chopped some wood but took a long time and couldn't manage the logs. Sometimes he came out with two younger children and led them in some playing. Once a worn looking woman came around the corner and called them in with a gesture and a glance to him up on the wooden steps. After that he went inside when the children came into the yard and they stayed longer in the summer evenings. The boy never quite got the chopping down, but Matthew saw a pile with a small amount of logs and wondered if she did it during the days. A pile of coal made a mess of a patch of dirt near the wall.

On a Friday at the station he felt a sort of panic rising at the small line of people that seemed a crowd and worried that someone would touch him. The work crew somehow was all right, perhaps because he was moving most of the time and he was just in the group, never singled out. Standing on line waiting for someone to talk to him was almost unbearable though. That made it all the more surprising when he heard himself asking if he was allowed to trade work for some food. The bouncer frowned and consulted a sheet of paper.

"There is no man there in the house on that lot," the bouncer told the soldier, "only one woman with four children."

"Yes," said Matthew. "I haven't spoken to her, and she may not want the help. It's just it seems she or someone else might trade."

"No," said the German standing behind. "No contact with other residents.

Matthew wondered at this emphasis on no contact with him. Feeling the panic lift a bit, he was relieved. He supposed he should be glad for the restrictions.

That next week Matthew dreamed every night and started to have complete lapses during the day. He would feel himself drop over an edge and be in the same indescribable universe, always with that earth, entirely surrounding him at times. During the day they didn't seem to last too long, but it was enough to keep him on edge.

In his calm moments, he wondered why he was getting worse. During a stretch in the final months in the last prison, he'd been completely alone after the interrogations had stopped. Food came in through a hole in the door and he passed out his latrine bucket. He couldn't hear anything outside the cell, saw little in the day from the light that seeped in from the door edges and the grate in the top of one wall, and saw almost nothing during what he presumed was night. The earth from the first war came around him and in spurts he knew he would go mad soon. Here, though he was alone in many ways, he had the chance to take care of some of his needs, to walk about with a degree of choice. The earth should just be earth, not his prison. Still he knew he was getting worse.

He felt rather than remembered those moments before his last attack in the first war. Mason had fussed longer than necessary straightening something, waiting. Matthew had known he was almost done and there had been a few beats where Mason seemed to know too, wonder if he would straighten himself and walk out. Matthew couldn't remember what either of them had said but Mason had helped, and in the end they went over one more time. For a long while if he remembered it at all he put the haziness down to his injury, Mason's death, the weight of the end of it. Later, he had wondered what would have happened if he hadn't been hit by that blast, whether he would have just broken down or whether he would have done something that cost his men. Now though, it was all a shapeless mass again, no timelines, no clear memories, just the feel of the bloody earth.

On the Saturday, Matthew walked out of town up a small hill. The view from the top was clear. The Abbey stood in the far distance. From his angle it was so huge that full grown trees seemed a little spray of foliage that hid a part of the building from view. He sat down a bit behind a bush, hiding himself from view, as if it mattered. He thought over the week of nightmares and surprisingly terrible blanks. He wondered if it was as simple as not having her to touch his arm. Being around people the other times he'd returned had been painful then as well, especially in '38 when he'd been sick, not injured. She would touch his arm and he'd been able to manage that much, gradually opening to a sort of life. It was the first time he had thought of her with him.

He started as he heard someone come up the edge and sit near a patch of larger grasses.

"You get along pretty quick for all that you know."

Peter Mills approached.

"Here is where I remind you not to talk to me."

"I am quite sure no one has followed and I will only be a few minutes. I just wanted...wondered how you are. You haven't been to the work crew the last couple of days."

"I have spells, don't know if it's an old shellshock or what, but I can't quite function," Matthew said in a matter of fact tone. "I made it to the station yesterday to sign in, but otherwise this is the first time I've been away from my room."

"You all right for food though?"

"I suppose. Yes, I have enough to get me to next week."

Peter Mills handed him a good size piece of cake and a small handful of walnuts.

"There isn't much fresh this time of year. Seems like there should be more but nothing's in yet. I never noticed that until the surrender came."

"Thank you."

Matthew held the cake in one hand while he worked on the walnuts. He felt the filmly crunch on his teeth. The cake was poppy seed, with some lemon flavoring perhaps.

"I haven't had anything like this in years," said Matthew. "Quite literally. Really, thank you."

"You're welcome. Do me a favor and eat them now, though."

"Why?"

"Well, you might hold your food for later but there shouldn't be anywhere you could get such things, if you were stopped. The cake is fresh enough they'd ask where it came from. And I guess I'd like to see you eat it."

The younger man took a much smaller piece of cake and nibbled on it. Matthew finished the walnuts and then started on the cake. He started to smell it about half way through and turned to meet Mills's eyes as he finished. He nodded and looked back to the view of the Abbey.

"Do you ever want to go there?"

"No, not really."

"But it was your home."

Matthew thought about home, not letting the memories really take shape.

"I don't know it ever really was. I did live there. Crawley House was a home for me before that anyhow. I was almost glad when they told me to go there when I returned."

"A lot of people don't like what has happened with you."

"I wonder people know."

"You are in that little room alone, on the crew, shunned really. The rest of them are living in the big house, almost like before. You went to fight and they get to go back to the grand style."

Matthew felt his eyes lose focus. The smell of the cake on his tongue kept him from slipping away into whatever his blurry vision held.

"I would like to see them, though, know they are well."

"They are well enough," the younger man said bitterly.

"Do you know where Isobel is buried? My daughter? I should be able to walk around and see if it's in the village but I haven't been able to manage it."

Mills's cheeks reddened and he looked down.

"I'm sorry," said Matthew. "You cared very much for her, perhaps."

"I did. I wish I had walked into the hills with her instead of going to Ripon that day."

"But you didn't. And you did not cause her to die."

The young man had let his head drop.

"She is buried in the church graveyard. Her grave is near the family plot, off towards the far gate. I think even restricted persons are allowed there, though the church itself counts as a building."

"A building?"

"You have to have a pass to enter every building except your quarters, the station, and the shower house."

"Because I am a restricted person?"

"Didn't they give you your papers?"

"I can't really read them, my eyes have gone bad."

"God. Well, yes, you are a restricted person. That means that except for authorities no one may speak to you unless necessary and you may not enter buildings without passes."

"Are you restricted?"

"Yes."

"Do you live alone then?"

"No, I live at my mother's, where I lived before I was arrested after Ripon."

"So that is allowed?"

"Yes, since I lived there before. I was not convicted so it creates fewer problems for her. I was just detained for a while and cautioned. I wouldn't want to live there if it was a problem, but she is my mum and I could see her making more trouble if I tried to stay away."

"Being convicted is worse?"

"Yes, I don't get how it all works exactly but a family may take in a near relative who's been convicted, and then they become responsible for him. At least once it's resulted in the whole family losing their home when the parolee got into some trouble. A family who wishes to stay away from that may sign a declaration of separation. Then the convict has no rights to the home and the family has no jeopardy so long as they stay away."

Matthew looked at the Abbey, his focus slowly returning. Mills got up and walked towards him.

"I'm sorry, but I should go. I'll go down the east side if you'd go the other."

"Of course. Despite what you said, I am slow today so you should be fine. You shouldn't talk to me again."

"No, it's all right like this."

"No, I mean it. I thank you for talking to me today, and for the cake, but I am not safe."

"They try to do this to us…"

"They have done it to me. It's done. Please."

Mills nodded his head with a resigned half-smile and walked away.

The next day, Matthew found Isobel's grave. He walked past the other headstones and markers of people he'd known: Violet, Cora, William Mason, Clarkson, Carson, off to a side, Lavinia. He saw his mother's and then his daughter's. Isobel Margaret Crawley, 1923 - 1940. He wondered who was at the funeral, if her body had actually been put there. That night, he didn't even bother lying down and just sat instead in the hard chair in the middle of his room.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Matthew made it to the work crew on Monday and ate the bread and cheese as soon as it was handed out. He saw Peter Mills looking at him. No one came to speak to him, though. He looped by the cemetery as he walked back to his room.

The work crew became more unpleasant as the summer warmed with long days and dirty tasks, but the food kept up. He tried a few greens from fields in his beans, using onion from the food queue, sometimes making a few dishes that tasted like something. He had sleepless nights but the daytime blanks mostly stopped. He walked by and into the graveyard on a nearly daily basis.

Walking by the train station on a hot evening he saw Mary and the children waiting on the street-side. The boys were both quite tall, George looking about and Rob facing the train as it pulled away. He thought Violet might have looked at him as he stepped into a shadow but supposed she was the least likely of the four to recognize him. She was thin and her hair was long and he wasn't sure he'd have known her if she hadn't stood so near her mother. They all stepped quickly into a car driven by someone he couldn't see and disappeared.

Walking again, he wondered for the first time if they'd seen him around the village. He didn't much notice his surroundings, he realized. When the car pulled to a stop at a shop on the main street as he walked through an alley across the way he almost smiled at the irony. Mary got out and went into and out of the shop in just a few moments. She turned along the walk and spoke to someone he couldn't see at first. A German officer walked up and opened the car door for her. He glanced up and down the street without moving his head and placed his hand on the small of Mary's back as she stepped into the car. The man, a colonel he could see now, smiled as he spoke to her. Mary moved easily and looked in his eyes as she sat back into the car.

Matthew sat for a time on the steps when he returned to his room. The hand on the small of Mary's back popped into his view but left him oddly quiet. He wished he were angry at her betrayal, or noble, glad someone was protecting her, but really he was just empty.

His dreams, though, remained full. Mary receded but the children came into them often, especially upsettingly. Izzy was often there, sometimes his parents. He stopped wondering why he was back; there was no why to anything except why he stayed alive. A stubbornness he supposed, his quality his mother had most disliked. Mary had rather liked it for a while.

His memory opened slowly to him. Sometimes they were all together, especially in the spring before the mobilization in '35. Mixed up in the remembering, he wondered what would have happened if he hadn't picked that time to become political, to oppose the looming build up to war. Of course, he'd imagined himself too important when he'd been drafted in, silencing him. And imagined himself too honorable to refuse his duty or even bring up his old injury, or the dreams of the first war that had still gripped him on the odd night.

Once he was in the army again he'd remembered he was just a cog like all the rest as they ground down to the inevitable invasion of the resurgent German homeland. He thought now he'd been more of a coward than anything else when he had reported for duty as summer began. What he should have done, though, he couldn't now discern though he wanted to, tried to when he had the energy.

He chose to remember the picnics of that spring, seeing George and Isobel returning from school, Mary free and confident with baby Violet in a way she hadn't been with the others. They'd made their own small home at Crawley House when their family had grown larger, making over guest rooms for two more children's rooms when they left the nursery. It had been Mary's great concession to him, he knew, and he remained grateful because it gave him the memories of everyone stuffed in the sitting room listening to the wireless, the children reciting poems in practice for school, the overcrowded table in the mornings before he headed off to Ripon. He felt his fullest self then.

For all that, he hadn't been surprised that Mary had brought the children to the Abbey while he was away during that version of the BEF. At first it had looked like a long haul with no predicting his return. Her family and the staff helped with the children, especially after his mother died. Their family became a part of the larger, and he believed Mary felt more solid with her home as it had always been.

The disasters in the Netherlands and the speedy collapse in Poland had led to their own uncertainties. Then he'd been so sick when he'd returned and useless to her in the weeks it took him to come back to himself that there was no question, really, of them returning to their old life. The notoriety of his unexpected resistance to the armistice had lingered even though he'd returned at the very tail end of the repatriations. He presented an oddly problematic figure, at once with a shade of heroism and yet quite inconvenient. More immediately, he hadn't been sure about returning to work as he felt raw and vulnerable in the renewed nightmares that found him as his physical health recovered. Downton had offered them refuge and he had found it a relief to follow Mary into old patterns as they had looked for a normal way amidst the new world.

As he remembered he realized he was feeling a little more real in his shabby room and life on the work crew. He felt good after showering and content when he received a small tin of cooking oil at the July food queue. The summer settled in and he found he sometimes slept most of the way through night when he could put off sleep long enough.

He remembered that September night in '39 when he'd told Mary he was going back. She hadn't believed him. He had wondered if she was right, that it was his drug, war. His words for the ditches filled with bodies of villagers had been just words. Perhaps she'd been right. He'd never been able to describe the moment he'd realized that in all the war he'd been through he had now seen evil that must be faced. Standing outside the house with its solid walls matching her connection to the place, he knew he'd never be able to explain why he would leave in a hopeless cause.

Even now, it was a choice he did not regret. He grieved his betrayal of her hopes, not seeing his children, not being there to stop Isobel from going into Ripon. He felt deep sorrow for leaving in '35 and not fighting on in '37. He felt a hole every time he should have felt her hand on his arm. It was, had been, all quite useless. But trying again to face the evil after he'd heard Germany had invaded France in '39 he kept as a single point of reference.

He walked on an August evening to the churchyard. The shadows held a cool comfort. He leaned along a sunken wall near the lines of family headstones and felt his body go slack, almost into sleep. He roused with a little lurch and stood up suddenly, turning to the gate and into Mary's gaze.

"Matthew," she said without other reaction. "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised to see you here."

"I am sorry," he said, "I didn't see you. I will go."

"No, don't apologize. And you needn't go just yet."

"I suppose you have some sort of immunity."

"Perhaps, of a sort, if I wanted to claim it. But no, I think that even these rules allow a little space for parents at their child's grave."

"You are more sure than I."

She looked at Isobel's grave and then back to Matthew.

"I saw you two or three times earlier in the summer. You seem …." She looked down, thoughtful, but not upset. "Listen, Matthew, I won't apologize for what I've done, the choices I'd made. I can't say that I would have done the same if I had known you were alive, but to be honest I might have."

"Well," he said, feeling surprise, "that is frank at any rate. Are you sure you know what you are about, though? These people are something else all together. Even more than I realized."

"So you say."

So he would say, she might have said. She had no spite though. She was beautiful, the wrinkles about her eyes, the lines along her mouth.

"I know," he started and then stopped before looking in her eyes for the first time. "I left, you asked me to stay and I left. I think I understand. Now I suppose, well, I would leave now if I could but I haven't any papers. And I haven't any fight left in me." He took a breath. "I need to go. Good night, Mary."

She nodded at him and he walked away in the other direction


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Autumn brought a shift in the work crew after a summer of digging ditches and filling holes in the road. They moved into the fields, working behind the machines, sometimes harvesting by hand things like potatoes and garden vegetables. On random days the bouncers let the men take food home. He liked working into the evening on something that seemed real, feeling his sweat cool across his back as he pulled weeds and filled baskets of food for other people.

The people running things on the farms carried a tension about them, and several times the work crews were sent back into fields to pick up beans and bits of other crops that had been left behind on a first pass. Matthew heard some of the farmers talking about how little they would be able to keep for themselves. He recognized a few of the farmers as former tenants at Downton, but no one looked at him.

He started to wonder about the feeling of the town. Given his own skewed place, he couldn't be sure, but things seemed harsh, lean. The little family in the front house seemed more pinched, the older boy a little more frantic as he carried in bits of coal and gathered the smaller children out of the street any time army trucks rumbled past.

Peter Mills reappeared on the work crew. He looked right at Matthew on a Thursday evening as things broke up. Matthew met his gaze. Friday after signing in and showering he walked out of town back to the hill where he'd spoken with Mills during the summer. The landscape hadn't really started to turn colors in full yet but the change seemed within each bit of worn green and edges of yellow. The Abbey looked gorgeous, floating golden amongst the incipient autumn. Mills approached.

"You live dangerously."

"Not really," said the young man. "Don't suppose I have much left to lose, so can't get too dangerous."

Matthew looked around.

"My mother died last month."

"I am sorry."

"Thanks."

The lad sat down at the edge of the wood near the path.

"I just wondered if you could explain to me what happened in '37. Izzy was always confused. Her mother seemed so angry about it."

"Did she? Did they?" Matthew played with a twig, swishing against the dry leaves of the bush he sat behind. "Well, I don't know much of what happened, just my piece."

"That's what I want I guess."

"Why?"

"I'm trying to decide what I should do next. No one talks about any of it. Whether or not we're supposed to, no one talks. It seems that was the turn."

Matthew considered that. "I suppose when we mobilized that summer before the invasion, that changed the flow of everything. People thought the Franco-Russian pact created a check on expansion and we merely needed a show of force and perhaps a little poke of an intervention to check the German saber rattling. When the Germans remilitarized the Rhineland we were ready and waiting, quick to invade all of Germany."

"But it was they who broke the treaties."

"Yes, but what treaties. And we invaded the whole. And more to it, we were not ready, not us nor the French."

"The Netherlands?"

"I was in the division that was thrown into the Netherlands while trying to swing across the Rhine. Swing across the Rhine. That was doom right there."

"But wasn't that the plan?"

"Yes."

"Did you believe in it at the time?"

"I forget. No. Doesn't matter, anyhow."

Peter Mills looked at Matthew again.

"And so how did you come to support keeping going?"

"I don't know exactly. I ended up with a smaller more mobile unit for a while at the beginning and we covered a lot of ground in the chaos, several times ending up going through areas after the Wehrmacht and the SS and the rest had been through. Fighting for their homeland they took time and resources to kill civilians on the ground, sometimes their own people. More than once I saw ditches of bodies, families together, seemed like entire villages though it couldn't have been. Most of the dead seemed to be Jews, some gypsies, people with those badges on their clothing, but I couldn't tell. That was in only a few weeks' time. And the armies, they were just so ready, so good. Once we'd botched it, giving them the Rhineland, and access to other resources, to the east to oil, it seemed they would use the moment to build on strength and take Europe entirely. And then I would think about those villages." Matthew looked towards the boy but didn't see him. "When it became clear we were going to negotiate, I just wanted some assurance they'd seen it."

"Seen it, what do you mean, who?"

"I think it was the first war hanging over me. Then, the generals seemed so distant, unconnected from the slaughter, fighting, making us fight, with little reason. Seemed to me the Nazis were a reason, the civilians were a reason. If our generals hadn't known the old fight was not worth it, how could they know maybe a fight was worth it. I don't know."

"But you hadn't wanted to go to war, I thought."

"I didn't. Partly, I didn't know them until I was back on the continent. Mostly, though, in the mess of war I think it matters how it starts, did you try to avoid it or did you seek it out." Matthew looked again over to the Abbey. "But then, once it started, with the lust uncorked, it seemed walking away would just give them more power. And letting them have more power would be a wrong given what they were prepared to do. So I thought we should stay, figure out a way to fight or support others to fight on."

"So how did that become such a problem?"

"My unit stayed functioning after some others began to fall apart. I started with a battalion in my old regiment, but took them with me into a reformed reconnaissance regiment when I ended up in command. After a couple of weeks we folded some other companies into the unit and I had command of the equivalent of three battalions. The men wanted to fight, at least be part of something that made sense. Ragged platoons and squads would wander into anything like a command post and take orders. I felt we had an effective force and that we should try to use it. The general in charge of the division did not. I proposed a retreat to a set of defensible positions that would give us time to decide whether to fight or withdraw by sea. He ordered me to stand down and wait for armistice terms. I insisted he give me orders personally. Very proper, but a challenge nonetheless. We had a staff meeting and I proposed my plans in front of the remaining officers. I thought my regiment could hold long enough to allow a pull out by sea of at least the rest of our division and the units remaining to the west of us. He relieved me of my command."

"Could you have won?"

"No, not won, but we could have given space to save a good chunk of the army. Instead we gave up most of our weapons, all our armour and transport support. Even most of the aircraft on the continent. Insanity."

"So you were disgraced by being relieved then on the eve of what became peace? That doesn't really make sense to me."

"Well, but it was messy of course. The regiment had been informed and I was fairly sure the X-O had been given command. My emotions were high. I went back to my command alone by car when I should have stayed under the generals' eyes. When I got there a German Panzer group had already entered the area but a lot of our men hadn't laid down their weapons. They wanted to fight, many of them had made a choice to keep fighting when they could have faded into the countryside, walked away from the obvious defeat."

Matthew remembered the scene with a stinging clarity, a picture view on the past in a way he didn't really access any more. As he'd driven along into his regiment's command area, he'd seen the troops from the Panzers massed, waiting with good discipline. The men, especially the men from his old battalion, milled in an ugly way. His executive officer, Barnes, now in command, stood in the right place, but to Matthew's eye clearly shaken. A German major ordered the British to form up and stack their weapons. Barnes didn't respond right away. A German lieutenant came up to Matthew with several enlisted men, pointing their weapons at Matthew, pushing him back against his car. The men started to mass in tension, and the Germans stiffened. Several tank turrets swung in line with the command area. His name came out from the crowd and he looked to Barnes.

Just over an hour before Matthew had offered to sacrifice them all to give other men a chance to escape and maybe fight again. Now he was sick at the thought he'd see them wiped away in a ridiculous, useless fit of frustration and misplaced loyalty. Matthew saw the German colonel most likely in command and called across the field in German, which confused everyone. After an angry focused glare and a brief exchange between them in German, the colonel allowed him to speak, to tell the men Barnes was in command and had his support, that it was a bitter end but they must follow orders and hope for the best. The men calmed and the German colonel walked over and directed Matthew back into his own car, putting in two German officers to drive him away.

He was talking too much.

"I don't know what went on, really, except things were volatile and the regiment almost refused to surrender arms in the middle of a fully armed Panzer column and I ended up driving away with some of the German officers. I was at once opposed to armistice and complicit with the enemy."

Matthew had been taken to an old prison inside western Germany, near a prison camp. He sat alone in a cell with a metal shelf for a bed and a hole for a toilet. If he pulled himself up to the barred window he could see the camp but couldn't tell if any of his regiment were there. The camp emptied rather quickly but he stayed, desperately sick before the new year. The next weeks were a haze and he was at Downton before he knew what had happened.

"I got sick in prison and was sent home later. That was the end of it for me."

The young man didn't look satisfied but he nodded.

"I think I understand the last war. You went then, too. That was more by choice, perhaps." He looked over as Matthew nodded. "What would you do now?"

Matthew looked at him.

"What if you could?"

The lad had posed a better question. What if he could?

"If it can be won, the war will be won from outside Britain. I suppose I would get out," said Matthew.

"Can it be won, do you think?"

"Perhaps.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

The autumn deepened. The work crew went back to road repair and garbage hauling. He felt his chest clogging up sometimes at night and wondered if he'd get sick. His lungs had remained weak after his illnesses in '37 and '38. The prospect was worrisome mostly for the discomfort but not any particular outcome.

He saw Mary about the village occasionally now, mostly alone, but sometimes with the German colonel. Von Roons, he learned when he listened around town. The village felt restive, resentment plain on faces as crops and freight trundled away in boxcars.

Peter Mills walked into the garage bay one evening as Matthew banked the embers in his little fire pit. Matthew looked out anxiously, but saw the lad sit smoothly on a box and moved quietly.

"Would you like some water? I warm it up sometimes with some mint leaves, sort of a tea. It's not that bad."

"Well, thanks, yeah, I'll give it a try."

Matthew handed over his cup. Peter smelled and then sipped quietly. He shrugged and nodded, then held the cup close as he looked at the glow in the pit fade.

"Are you all right, then?"

"Yeah, my mum left a store of dried and canned things. Should have brought you something maybe."

"Thanks, but I'm fine these days."

"It's a different county, like."

It was Matthew's turn to shrug and nod. "I don't exactly receive visitors..."

"Right. I just wanted to tell you that I think you are right, that it's best to leave. Maybe to help others leave." The lad looked at Matthew in the thickening gloom of the garage.

"Well, you should probably go now."

"They want you to get Lady Mary to go."

"Sorry?"

"They are leaving. The Earl anyhow, and the rest of the family. Yours."

"What?"

"I don't know it all. Only Lord Grantham spoke with me last Sunday in the cemetery. I was looking at Isobel's grave."

Matthew hadn't been there since he'd seen Mary.

"He said he was leaving and wanted you to know, and to know that Lady Mary had decided the place was more important, that the boche colonel was the way to keep it safe. She doesn't know the Earl's leaving but he wants her to come. He thinks you can get her to."

Matthew sat back on the floor, gaping at the boy. It was a ridiculous adventure story. Mills continued though, and told him that he could find Mary when she visited the colonel in town as she did many nights at Von Roons's rooms in the old Haley house. On the right night there would be a knife and perhaps a pistol in the bin down from the outhouse he used. A staff car would stop in the middle of the block near Von Roons's quarters after 12:30 and then pick them up going east at the south end of the lane. It was up to Matthew what he did as long as nothing was discovered until dawn.

"I won't do anything to harm her."

"They don't want you to. You may of course leave her there, or not try, at your choice."

"This comes from Robert?"

"He is the one who told me. Guess I don't know where it comes from before that."

"Do they want me to kill Von Roons?"

"I don't think it matters either way. For myself it would be nice if not; I hear there are reprisals in towns where Germans have trouble."

Matthew nodded. "And he didn't say anything about me other than that I could get Mary?"

"Right," said Peter slowly.

"I can't go checking that bin every night."

"It will have some sort of different lid."

Matthew looked at the lad again. It was tempting to think that this was why he was back, that this was what he could do. What did it matter, though, if Robert and Mary got away, what could they do to fight? Again Peter seemed to know what was on his mind, explaining before he said anything that the earl was getting away as part of a group of old families leaving to help form up a government in exile. Matthew couldn't believe there wasn't one already somewhere, but he supposed it might be so.

"You are asking a lot. She is still, well, I could end up in a position to cause her great harm. I don't think I can have that."

"Lord Grantham said he knew he was asking too much. He said he thought he must take the young people as they will be at risk. He doesn't know if she would be or not, but thinks it's right to go. I thought about what you said, that leaving would help the fight and so I decided I would try to help."

"Do they take you with then?"

"No," said the boy with a drawn out sigh. "I didn't even ask. I'm walking out of the town in the next week or so. I hope to find some of those that are supposed to be in the hills going north."

The boy got up and thanked Matthew as he handed back the cup.

"I don't know they'll take you, actually."

"I wouldn't expect so," said Matthew.

Peter nodded with a little grimace and put out his hand to Matthew.

"Best of luck to you, Peter."

"And to you, sir."

Matthew watched the bin after that as he came away from the outhouse. Peter Mills didn't return to the work crew. The nights grew cooler and Matthew's room was quite cold at night. He brought in some branches and rushes he tied together into something like a bed and got himself up off the floor while sleeping, but still woke up stiff.

It made sense that Mary didn't want to leave. She had always had the house more than anything else. It was why she had been so angry when he got in the way and he'd always known he wouldn't have been in her view if he hadn't been linked to the place. When he'd put in his money and then the inheritance laws had changed that pull had loosened a bit, but his claim to the title still provided a fitness to things for her. It wasn't that she didn't love him, even now he thought she did, but it was more complicated for her. He'd always thought it was simpler for him, though now he wasn't so sure.

The dreams came back stronger again, still of the first war. When he had a bit of detachment, he thought it interesting that experience still ruled him. His days were mostly clear and he found himself able to consider and plan.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Matthew sat in the chair watching her sleep. He wondered if others still thought her beautiful. She opened her eyes with a start and a very quiet gasp.

"Have you killed him?"

"No, he's unconscious in the bathroom. You may look if you wish."

"What is this, Matthew?"

"I only know a small part. Your father is leaving, I believe he's leaving the county, and he's taking the children with him. He wishes you to come but was afraid your attachment to Downton and whatever is between you and Von Roons would stop you. He thinks I can get you to go."

"You seem to know a lot."

"Hmm, well, that is all."

"So, what is your argument?"

"I haven't really got one, but I don't really need one, do I? Whether or not Robert makes it away Downton will be seized. Even if Von Roons is able to get some claim for you, it almost certainly won't stay yours. And the children could use you."

"Anyone could have told me that, but he sends you."

"That part is interesting, I admit. I'm not sure what he was up to. It all feels a bit like your grandmother, though. Perhaps it has come out more as he ages."

Mary started to smile and then her eyes smoothed away any reaction. She looked to the bathroom but did not get up. Matthew sat back in the chair.

"How did you get in?"

"It was fairly easy. My German is good enough and it's dark. They are a little complacent."

"I suppose that will change. Why didn't you kill him?"

It would have been personal, he thought, something he had never done in all his murderous acts. "There are reprisals in towns where Germans have too much trouble," he said.

"I suppose. And so we sit?"

"About another half hour or so."

He got up and switched off the light. As he reached over she saw his jacket and her eyes widened.

"You are hurt."

"It's not my blood."

"Karl's?"

"No, a guard along the lane."

"I thought you said you were avoiding reprisals."

"He was a bouncer, looks a little like me. I have switched some clothes with him and I have his ID. It may look like the Home Guard was involved in the assault and your kidnapping or escape, create some confusion for a bit at least."

"And you killed him?"

What did she think his life had been? He motioned for her to be quiet as they heard someone walking in the downstairs hall. She settled back on the bed and looked at him as he watched the door. They sat like that until Matthew stood and motioned towards her clothes. As she dressed he turned to the door and picked up the German's coat.

They walked out into the darkened hall, down the servants' steps and into the back lane. They stood inside the back door for a few minutes and Mary looked panicked until her eyes met his. He realized Robert, or whoever had sent him, was cleverer than he had given credit. She would follow him at least for a bit and he found he still knew her. They got by without speaking.

A car pulled along the back lane and paused for just a moment without braking. Then it moved past to the north. Matthew stepped into the yard with his hand on Mary's elbow. They walked to the opposite end of the lane and the car pulled along to the east. They stepped in as the car slowed with barely a brake and moved off.

Matthew looked at Mary in the dark car. He had no idea who was driving nor where they headed. He supposed he had thought they would talk quietly about their past, that she would touch his arm perhaps, but he knew now that would not happen.

"I am sorry you have not been able to be with the children. They asked after you."

Matthew looked out the window. What would she tell them? He didn't want to know.

"Would you have tried to stop Isobel?"

"Yes," he said quietly.

"But not yourself."

"I don't know."

She leaned back and closed her eyes. He watched her as the car moved along in the darkness. Her face softened as she fell asleep.

He had nothing to give her. She would go with Robert and the children and perhaps survive the war. Without Downton her world would never be the same and he would always be part of the loss.

He thought the trip was taking too long and he wondered at the plan but said nothing as the second hour or so passed. The car downshifted and turned off the main road, lurching a bit. Mary woke with a shake.

"I cannot believe I fell asleep." She stopped and looked ahead. "I am sorry about it all, Matthew."

"I am too."

She looked into his eyes as much as she could in the darkness as the car shook them.

"Your face doesn't show anything anymore, I think. It used to be so mobile, even when you went away the last time."

She was right, he supposed.

"Sir," the driver said, gesturing back with his head.

Matthew turned and looked into the darkness.

"When did you notice it?"

"Not sure, perhaps five minutes."

Matthew peered down the road.

"Is there any sort of hard turn ahead, do you know?"

"Yes, I think sort of a 's' around a small hill."

"Good. Stop just on the other side. Have you any weapons?"

"Yes, in the bag beneath the passenger seat."

"Any explosives?"

"Just some grenades, four. Five magazines with the Bren under there, though."

Matthew reached under the passenger seat in front of Mary.

"I'm going to take the whole thing, is that all right?"

"Yes, sir."

Mary looked between the two men as Matthew leaned sideways against the back seat, facing her.

"Who is the driver, Matthew?"

"I don't actually know, Mary. He is driving the car."

"And yet you do what he says."

"We all have our roles."

"After all this time, we are still at those differences."

"We are still different."

The car slowed.

"How will you join us?"

"I will not. I wasn't going to be."

A crunch of trouble passed her forehead with something else going on with her eyes. At that moment he saw the gaze that had pulled him into Downton, made him a father, brought him back to life after the first war, shown him love. He smiled as the car came to a stop. Her forehead relaxed as she returned a small smile. Her eyes stayed the same. That was it then, another reference point he could still see.

Matthew nodded to the driver who glanced behind and he looked at Mary as he dragged the heavy bag with the weapons to his side.

"Good bye, Mary."

She nodded and stared at him as he stepped back out of the car and closed the door. The car moved off as he turned to the side of the road.

Matthew walked to the edge of the small hill as the car moved out of sight. He could see the trailing vehicle making its way along the dark road. Their driver must have practiced the route to be so quick and smooth because the vehicle behind was moving in slow spurts and clearly lurching. He sighted along a dip and rise and opened the bag as he dropped down against the hard earth. He pulled out the Bren and lined up its magazines, locking the first into place as he spread the tripod holding up the barrel. The grenades were German and he put them on the top of the bag. After a moment he pulled out the pistol that had been in the bin back by his room and placed it to his left, then put the knife to the back of the bag near his waist as he stretched on the ground. The car with Mary moved out of sight as he became sure the trailing vehicle was a German army truck.

Mary's car pulled up to a small clutch of men standing near a mass of rock blending down to a small cove. She could just see a boat, stern bobbing. Her father stepped to her.

"Thank God," he said as he lightly grasped her arm.

"The children?"

"Already on the boat that will take us away."

"Matthew stayed behind on the road."

Robert nodded. "I never used a man so ill."

"But he is his own."

Robert tipped his head to the side, looking at her, and then turned them both towards the water. Mary's steps stuttered a bit at first but she climbed smoothly into the little boat. As they were rowed away from the shore a muffled explosion wafted from down the road near the hill and the punches of automatic gunfire rattled just above the sound of the small waves on the rock.

**-END-**

_AN: Thanks for your comments, and for reading! I haven't written fanfiction but I have enjoyed reading it for a few years and finally offer a little contribution. These are great characters and it has been fun to envision them in a different world, apart but still so important to each other. _


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